Spring is here!

"Green" lawnmowers at work

Mounted Patrol Class is over

It has been a long 5 weeks, but the 40 hour mounted patrol class is over. I will try to get some pictures posted if I can get my hands on some. The last class and final test was last night and Amigo and I passed. Actually I think everyone passed with some having more difficulties than others. We were somewhere in the middle having to repeat two of the test items. After the class we got our belt buckles, hat pins, breast collars, scarves, and.....

saddle pad cover blankets for the Memorial Parade on Saturday! Yes, the Citizens Mounted Patrol Unit is actually going to be a part of the parade this year instead of just traffic control. The Teton County Sheriff's office has an entry in the parade honoring the fallen law enforcement officers in Wyoming. Each of us riders will represent a law enforcement agency from the State of Wyoming that has had an officer die in the line of duty and each of us has a saddle pad cover with that unit's patch. Six of the agencies are actually providing their own officers to ride in the parade, plus the Governor of the State of Wyoming and some other unspecified dignitaries will be in the entry. The entry will start with an honor gaurd, and then a couple of wagons carrying the dignitaries with a riderless horse behind one of them. Then our column of troopers will fall in behind. And the best part is that we are supposed to be televised nationally. The powers that be could not tell us the what where when or how, so if anyone happens to run across this on TV please let me know. If you do happen to catch it, look for the copper sorrel colored horse with the short rider and baby blue blanket cover with the Gillette, Wyoming Police patch. There is actually a web site dedicated to Wyoming's fallen officers and it was fascinating to read the history of these men. If you look at the early ones, you will see officers shot from all of the "old west" stereotypes: train robbers, horse thieves, angry lynch mobs, bank robbers, etc. And the most fascinating part is that since 1883, there are only 47 fallen officers in Wyoming, with Game and Fish having the most. Again, I will try to post pictures of the parade if I can get some. Wish us luck, I hope Amigo behaves!

May 13, 2008 images

Don't you wish you could cool off too?

Mounted Patrol second week

There's not much to report. Mounted Patrol is going well. The course is challenging to us first timers. We've had a few issues, but I expected that with a nervous horse and a novice rider. At least we improve each night and for now Amigo's navicular is not a problem.

Elk Ivory

It's like a scene out of the old west...the crusty cowboy comes across a skeleton while riding his horse through the untamed desert. Except the crusty cowboy is only me, and I'm not on a horse but rather my mule. And we aren't in the untamed desert, only the sage brush country not too far from home looking for antler sheds...but it appears the die hard antler hunters have beaten us to it. And the skeleton is nothing more than an elk cow carcass that was the victim of a hard winter. But look, she still has her ivories...and they are mine, all mine!!! And they are nice ones except I ruin them with my leatherman getting them out. Dang!

Sara shows she ain't affraid of no dead animal.

She gives the elk skull a good sniffing.

Ivory, glorious ivory!

The main purpose in driving an hour to go riding through the sage brush was to get some fat off of my mule. There's still too much snow at home. Antler huntinig is so popular (and so profitable) out here that they actually have to close large tracts of land to human entry to protect wintering wildlife. People have been known to chase elk down with snowmobiles trying to pull their antlers off with a lariat. So the land I was on this past weekend opened up April 1st. It is no wonder I didn't find any antlers....they are usually all found the first day.

I did see some wildlife on Sunday. I saw Sharp Tail Grouse, Sage Grouse, Elk, Mule Deer, and a Moose. Sara gets very excited about big game. She is very curious about them. She even sniffed out an elk bedded down in the sage and led me right to it. Just like a hound dog. I coudln't believe it when she made a bee line for this bush and an elk popped up behind it and ran off.

All and all it was a good time. I learned that not only is Sara a snow machine, but she eats up the desert too. Just don't pull a crinkly bag of candy out of your pocket or you are going for a ride!

April 10 2008 images

Here's the mailbox I built out of found junk scrap metal last spring (well, I actually bought the box itself, but the rest is recycled). I designed it to be snow plow proof and it worked pretty good!

Winter Images